word fires

In some areas, schools still had young people participating in track meets and other sports, despite the risks from “normal” smoke inhalation.

The Woolsey fire which started at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site and spread further, through a highly radioacitvely contaminated area, created an even more intense exposure for Los Angeles area residents. That smoke lofted and spread local radioactivity over a wide area. to be inhaled and to fall out.

From Akio Matsumura, Finding the Missing LinkAugust 7, 2018

After the government of Japan announced last year that it would take at least forty years to remove the irradiated cores from three crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, I shifted my focus to the dangers to marine life and the potential risk to people in North America resulting from the forty-year flow of radioactive wind and contaminated water from Fukushima.

After the government of Japan announced last year that it would take at least forty years to remove the irradiated cores from three crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, I shifted my focus to the dangers to marine life and the potential risk to people in North America resulting from the forty-year flow of radioactive wind and contaminated water from Fukushima.

If
you ask Japanese volcanic scientists and seismologists about the
possibility of the eruption of Mt Fuji and the strong earthquake in
Tokyo in forty years, they will say it is almost sure to happen. So,
even though major damage to human life, the environment, and the
economy is likely to occur, people ignore it because they cannot
think that far ahead. That’s just forty years. Meanwhile, radiation
remains dangerous for thousands of years. How do we learn to connect
these long time frames to our human lifetime?

I
am pleased to introduce “California’s
Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation,”
written by Gregg Lien, an environmental and land use attorney
practicing in Lake Tahoe, California. Going forward, I plan to
introduce the opinions from observers and experts from many fields
about the forty-year accumulation of radiation from Fukushima. I look
forward to hearing what their suggestions for what actions we can
take now to reduce the burden on future generations.

— Akio

California’s
Wildfires and Nuclear Radiation – A Personal Story

Gregg
Lien

Gregg
Lien is an environmental lawyer in California

When
I purchased a commonly available radiation detector right after the
Fukushima disaster in 2011 I never would have dreamed how it would
impact the way I saw the world. Since then I would periodically test
the level of radioactivity around my home here in the Sierra Nevada
mountains of California. Nothing was ever out of the ordinary, and my
own readings were generally in the 30 to 50 counts per minute (cpm)
range. Perfectly safe, or so I thought.

That
all changed this Spring, when by chance I happened to remember that
testing on an air filter could show the presence of “hot”
particles. Since I happened to own two air cleaners with HEPA air
filters, I got out my detector and laid it down on one of the HEPA
filters. Immediately the detector went into a wild frenzy of clicking
punctuated by the flashing of the red light each time it was
bombarded by ionizing radiation. Thinking something had to be wrong,
I tried again only to have the same result. I tried again on the
other air cleaner and found an even higher result of over 800 cpm.

Since
I had at that time been working with Akio for about a year, and had
been introduced to several of his nuclear experts by email, I reached
out to them asking what could possibly be causing this disturbing
result. All agreed this was a high result, and the prime suspect was
radon gas. Radon gas is common in this area, and can be threat to
health. I promptly obtained test kits for my indoor air and well
water, sent them in, and within a week I had the results – – all
completely negative. At this point, concerned for the health of my
family, I began testing everything I could think of to try to
determine the source. Floor tiles, countertops and a few other things
registered higher than the ambient level, but I was assured that this
wouldn’t contribute more than about 30 cpm to the total.

After
about a week or so, I remembered reading that many years after the
Chernobyl disaster, people living there who heated their homes with
wood, like we do, released radiation into the atmosphere once again
in the burning process. We have two woodstoves in our home, one large
one in the living room and a smaller one in the master bedroom. Since
the fine particulate material of the ash might contaminate my
detector, I laid down some sheets of paper towels on the ash below
the stove in the bedroom, and switched the detector on. Immediately
it registered far higher than ambient levels and beyond. Same in the
living room. Same at a neighbor’s house. The source apparently was
the fire wood – – mostly cut on my own land. Most of my neighbors
heat with wood too, at least as a backup. Wood smoke, as I was
well-aware, is composed of extremely small particulates that are
easily breathed into the body and absorbed.

The
implications of this discovery were disturbing. There were
radioactive particles in the air that we were all breathing,
apparently in large quantities. These particles had apparently been
bio-accumulating in the woods around my home for many years, and were
re-suspended when burned.

I
immediately began monitoring my indoor air regularly, and took a
reading on the HEPA filters whenever I could, generally hourly when I
was home. Since the level of radiation was much lower without wood
smoke indoors, I decided to put one air cleaner outdoors and leave
the other indoors. I got out a fresh legal tablet and started a
protocol where I would take a reading on each filter, take a picture
of the result on my radiation detector with my smartphone, and write
down the results. This quickly showed that there was not a much
difference between the readings indoors or outdoors.

What
I did not know at this point was if this was a localized problem, or
whether it was more widespread. With fire season approaching, I
abandoned taking two readings, and focused on carefully taking
readings outdoors, recording them, and taking a picture of the sky
when smoke or clouds were present. Knowing that a fire event was
likely going to happen in the upcoming months, I wanted to be ready
to see if smoke from wildfires outdoors would result in similar
levels of radioactive particles as I had found indoors.

I
never could have suspected that the wildfires in California would be
as epic as they have been this year. We live in an area vulnerable to
fires, and we take them seriously. We had been evacuated in 2014 as a
fire approached to within a half mile of our home driven by strong
winds, and were only saved by a massive air attack from a virtual
fleet of air tankers lined up dropping water and fire retardant. This
left a deep impression on us. My stepson has since become a fireman,
and has just returned from a deployment to several fires, and after
nursing an injury and getting clearance from his doctor, will be back
on the fire lines.

As
horrific as this season’s fires have been so far, with all the
destruction of homes and loss of lives, what disturbs me most is what
I have just recorded in my logs, photos and readings. At the peak of
the fires and smoke just a few days ago, the readings were
significantly higher – – and not by just a little. I recorded a
peak reading of 1,333 cpm on
the morning of July 31st, and had multiple readings above 1,000 cpm
during that period. And, none of the fires is even close to us this
time. The likely source of much of the smoke here is a fire near
Yosemite National Park, over a hundred miles away. I suspect heavier
concentrations of smoke would yield higher results.

Has
the vast bulk of the 40 million population of California just been
unknowingly exposed to high concentrations of radioactive particles?
What are the constituents of these particles? How hazardous are they?
It was recently widely reported that radiation from Fukushima, in the
form of Cesium-137, was detected in small quantities in California
wines. There can be little doubt that Cesium-137 from Fukushima has
also been absorbed by all the vegetation here, and when burned, is
re-released.

This
situation cries out for serious study. I have no experience or
academic training in this field. There may well be alternative
explanations. I can see from what I have recorded that there are
nuances and variances over the course of the day that probably
reflect complex processes. All I know is that what we have been
breathing shows indications of being contaminated with radioactive
particles. It is strongly implied that this radioactivity has been
silently concentrating in the plants around us, and is presumably in
the food we eat, and in what we drink as well.

If
that is correct, this is a situation far worse than we have ever been
told. It is likely a global problem, as the exotic and unnatural
particles that never existed on this planet previously until the
dawning of the nuclear age have now found their way into the air, the
oceans, and every living thing. With California on fire, my hope is
for all of us to burn away our own complacency, and reignite our own
passion to serve life itself in each moment. We can all do something
to help according to our abilities, as Akio has selflessly done for
many years using his gifts in bringing together international leaders
for important common goals. Time is short, and the problem is
measured in lifetimes. And potentially for some of us, shortened
lifetimes at that.

Gregg Lien is an environmental and land use attorney practicing at Lake Tahoe in California. He is a former prosecutor, and was a former assistant county counsel specializing in land use issues before moving to Lake Tahoe in 1980. He was a participant in the first Presidential Summit on the Environment, hosted by then President Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore, and has been interviewed over the years in various media, including National Public Radio. He has been a frequent participant in regulatory negotiations and battles over resources in the Sierras. He lives with his wife, Heidi, and whichever of their children needs a place to stay now that the youngest has turned 18. He is fascinated by electronics and has a collection of meters and gadgets for his amateur radio and musical hobbies, some of which are actually useful in practical application – – or so he claims.